Wyatt Walker
Basic Information Wyatt keeps his head better than most, and is a guy few people have any problem with. He isn’t a pushover, but he has a higher tolerance for people’s slights and shortcomings. He doesn’t ignore them, but he’s usually able to take them in stride and move beyond them. He’s very social, and acquaintances are easy to form with him. Deeper friendships? Not so much. As social as he is, he plays his personal matters close to the chest. He’s happy to engage in any conversation – from small talk to the daily minutiae to the deeply philosophical -- as long as it doesn’t delve into his private life. Even if he isn’t harbouring some deep dark secret, he does not like his affairs being pried into. Getting too pushy will likely get somebody a blowoff answer, some sort of deflection, or – if kept at it – some snap about leaving him alone. Though he gets exasperated, it’s a damn hard endeavour to get a rise from him. Wyatt’s slow to anger, and even slower to infuriate, but once that line gets crossed it forms a breach that is truly irreparable. He isn’t likely to fly off in explosive rage, and is less apt to fester and obsess over revenge (though he does appreciate Karmic retribution); instead he cuts people out of his life with clean-cut precision (figuratively). He goes about it with a steady resolve against any pleading or apologies – no matter how heartfelt. It’s a fairly complete and permanent process, but it doesn’t happen often: his regard is hard to gain and even harder to lose; but once gone it’s lost forever. He’s a fairly fun guy, one up for trying new things and whose ready to diffuse tensions with a quip at his own expense if need be, but he isn’t a spontaneous one. He prefers a heads-up and some warning for plans -- even if it’s just a phone call five minutes before -- instead of people randomly showing up at his door. While he appreciates little things, especially if they’re heartfelt or useful, he’s just not the best guy to spring a huge surprise on. Oddly enough: he handles a crisis situation better than a surprise party or an impromptu day out. He’s great to have around when a vehicle breaks, a friend needs back on their feet, somebody gets hurt, etc. He’s got a cool head that’s quick to respond when something needs to be done. And in an emergency the priority and things that need to be done stick out to him: get to safety, get other people to safety, contact the right authorities, and if injuries involved try to do what he can. He isn’t any kind of doctor, but he knows enough to realize that if somebody is bleeding you should try to stop that and he shouldn’t tackle injuries he has no clue about. Imprisonment/Deaths/Mutations Wyatt hasn't been imprisoned. He's also had the good fortune of not dying yet -- though considering the injuries he's taken in the line of duty, he jokingly wonders whether dying and returning would have been preferred. (Healing up after a broken rib? Not a fun two months.) Infrared Vision Wyatt's vision doesn't work the way others' do: he only sees in the infrared spectrum. He never has trouble seeing at night, and is a pretty hard guy to sneak up on considering you can't exactly go and hide behind a wall or in the bushes. (He sure as hell can pick Hero out of any crowd.) In simplified terms, he's a walking thermograph: the 'colors' of his vision correspond to the levels of thermal/electrical radiation being emitted or absorbed. In addition to being damn good at casing out how many people are in a building, his ability is also useful in analyzing how sound a building's structural and electrical systems are. While other people would require high-tech equipment to pin-point structural openings and dead wires at a glance, Wyatt was born with it. Drawbacks Wyatt does not see colors the way they appear in the visual spectrum. He can easily make out shapes and contours and some textures, but paintings/photos/texts are largely wasted on him. He can differentiate people's facial features, but he has no clue if a person is a blond or brunette. It's pointless to give him a photo of something you're looking for, or for him to try to describe somebody's appearance outside of their body shape and clothing style (excluding colors). : Lost in Translation - "Hot", "warm", and "cold" are 'colors' to Wyatt. Words such as 'orange' or 'blue' mean absolutely nothing to him, since he's had his ability for as long as he can remember. This makes communicating with others difficult, since he can't know what something looks like by looking at a picture and he can't effectively communicate to anyone else what he sees. (Example - how the hell is he supposed to figure out which car is the red one?) : Crowds - hiding behind a bush won't work with him, but hiding behind a couple of other human bodies will -- even if you're neon yellow and everyone else is grey. Without color, people look really damn similar in a crowd. Wyatt can distinguish people's individual features up close, but he loses a lot of detail as he gets further out. (Also, a person could be effectively hidden by standing behind an object hotter than them.) A person needs to be significantly hotter, colder, taller, or larger than the others in the crowd for him to pick them out. : Reading - Unless the text is raised (or etched), in braille (which doesn't really exist here), or a frickin' neon sign Wyatt can't read it. Most normal text tends to be neither of those, leaving him effectively blind in some vital areas. Because he doesn't have the luxury of writing things down to remember, he has an excellent memory. Wyatt only needs to be given a number, address, or directions once and he'll remember. Relationships : His Partner - while his sight makes him an incredibly useful guard, it also hinders him in some basic areas. At work these drawbacks are remedied by working with a partner. He/she can read and use photographs where Wyatt cannot, and Wyatt can see bodies' heat signatures where they can't. You may think of them as the post-apocalyptic 'buddy cop' team; Wyatt constantly jokes that they're each others' 'seeing-eye dogs'. : Your character here! Wyatt's lived in the city all his life and has complete memories of his past twenty years. So he's character is open for developing backstories! Ideas: :*A friend of his who doesn't remember him after dying :*Co-workers or people he's deals with a lot in his line(s) of business :*Childhood friends / Acquaintances / Exes History Wyatt grew up in the City, and his memories start from when he was around seven to nine (he doesn't know the exact age, just the range). So he's pretty much got a complete lifetime of memories. It's a fact he appreciates, knowing not everyone is fortunate enough to say the same. He remembers the chaos before Alpha took over. Even though he was young at the time, and certainly some things probably were beyond his understanding, he remembers that it was Hell. It was also a crash course in keeping his head in a crisis, and Wyatt found he could manage a disaster situation pretty well. He also found out that a lot of people couldn't, and he stepped up to the plate in managing others in a crisis. He learned to recognize who only needed to be assigned a task to ward off hysteria, who was too in shock to be asked upon, who needed to be subdued before they endangered others, etc. He was able to immediately switch from a 'Relaxed' to 'Action' mode when things got chaotic, and with his sight he pre-empted most sneak-attacks and the night was just as clear to him as day. Wyatt used this to his advantage and others' in dealing with the aftermath of chaos and in trying to prevent it where he could. Considering his youth he wasn't often successful, but that didn't stop him from trying. Even at thirteen, "survival of the fittest" was a bullshit philosophy in Wyatt's book. Wyatt had tasted true Anarchy, and he found it fucked up. His tendencies naturally steered him towards the 'Law & Order' side of things and protecting the peace. When he got word of a group led by Alpha aiming to establish that very thing, Wyatt joined them voluntarily. The Labs helped him figure out more about the possibilities and limits of his mutation, and it was there that he was dubbed 'Delta'. He's pretty sure it was just a shorthand for his case number or something, but the nickname stuck throughout his professional career. When he joined he was still too young to do too much for the government, but there were people there who saw his potential and worked with him to realize it. He trained. He learned to shoot things at other things very well. Creative solutions around his sight were used to teach him to read Even if it was rarely useful. There was a montage, etc. He worked for the City's government in various guarding and crisis response capabilities until he was given an official spot in Alpha's retinue when he was 21 (or 22?). And Wyatt's not gonna lie: the guy is eccentric as all hell. But, as he's wont to do, Wyatt just takes that all in stride: Alpha is responsible pulling the City out of anarchy, after all. So if the guy wants to volley between 'eccentric' and 'batshit insane' every now and then, Wyatt's not really going to judge. Extras *Not seeing "color" the way most know it in the visual light spectrum, Wyatt's wardrobe is completely monochromatic: blacks, whites, and grays. It spares him the headache of attempting to guess at colors and coordinate them, since he's been told the "wrong colors" together just look "off". ...Whatever the hell that means. *Wyatt always has some sort of two-way radio or comm device on him -- often as an earpiece. It useful both professionally and personally: people usually can't just write a note and leave a message (unless they make sure to press down very hard), so they can just ping him on the radio. There are three frequencies: general/personal, private, and professional. The latter two are secure. Wyatt keeps his radio set on the general frequency by default until someone tells him they need to talk over one of the secure lines. :*He also keeps a recorder by his door for those who stop by while he was out. But that requires the person knowing his home address to use it. Casual as he is, he doesn't give that information out readily. *Whether or not he meets somebody in a professional capacity determines how he introduces himself. Other government employees know him as "Delta" and may not know he has a name other than that. He's not trying to hide it, it's just that nobody ever calls him by his real name at work. The people he's worked closely with (especially for the past few years) likely know that his name is Wyatt but just call him "Delta". When he's not on the clock or isn't there talking to someone "on official business" than he just introduces himself as Wyatt. Footnotes